January 27, 2014
One area that is lagging behind in the human rights treaty
field is good, informative government websites that list a state's human rights
treaty obligations. Most states don't have any website dedicated to their
human rights obligations. Those that do have some form of web presence, tend to
address only partial information and/or fail to keep that information up to
date.
Technology
is quickly changing our lives. Access to the Internet and electronic
information is improving greatly across all domains. Even the least developed
countries are experiencing growth of electronic access. According to the
International Telecommunications Union only 8% of the developing world had
Internet access in 2005, but by 2013 that figure had quadrupled to 31%.
At a minimum I submit that governments should establish a
permanent website dedicated to their human rights treaty obligations,
containing the following information:
•
the human rights treaties to which it is a party
•
a link to each of the treaty body websites for which it is
a party
•
the latest reports submitted to each treaty body
•
the latest common core report submitted to the treaty body
system
•
the latest concluding observations of each treaty body
•
the schedule of next appearances before each treaty body
•
upcoming deadlines for submitting next reports or follow
up information
•
progress toward implementation and consultation
opportunities for civil society
•
information about the live and archived treaty body
webcasts of appearances of the government
•
the site should also be disability accessible in its
design
•
the content of the site should be regularly updated; the
site should indicate when the content was last revised and the government's
policy on how frequently it intends to update the site in order to keep the
information current
Now is the time for states to take advantage of the
advances in technology, and to disseminate information about their human rights
treaty obligations to a greater number of their stakeholders. All
international human rights treaties obligate states to disseminate information
about the treaty and the state's human rights obligations to a wide audience of
stakeholders. In addition to the traditional means of dissemination, these
electronic means should also be taken up and utilised.
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